The Death of a Hero
by Bianca di' Angelo1
Summary: "The darkness was of ink. The light, of sparkling wine." Rhy's POV of his death. ACOWAR spoilers.


There was silence. Utter quiet. Feyre had done it. Unleashed Amren. She murmured something to Varian but I didn't hear it. That silenced smothered me, drowning me. Then something snapped into place and the world seemed to click and move ever so slightly back into orbit.

Feyre stepped toward the broken Caldron. Ever so quietly, cautiously.

I touched my mate on her shoulders do she turned around. My hands were still tipped in talons. I was barely out of that form, the beast, my canines still elongated.

"Are you hurt, are you-" _Amren._ The name echoed in my head.

"You-you freed her-" my voice shook and quavered and stumbled in the emptiness of the silence. The silence that was drawing to a closes as the lack of feeling spread from the Caldron to the armies. Already soldiers of all courts screeched and tore at their hair.

Feyre opened her mind to me and I slipped in but refused to lower my own shields. I saw everything. Nesta, Cassian, the king, her father, Amren, all of it. The thing that was the hole behind us.

She was shaking so I wrapped my arms around her. Gently. Softly. And just for a moment.

"We have a problem," Varian murmured, pointing to a spot just beyond us. To where the gap in the world, the gap within the shards of the caldron was… Was growing.

It could not be destroyed, we had been warned. Because our whole world was bound to it. If it were destroyed we would be too. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. But…

"What have I done." Feyre breathed. My mental shields remained up but behind them my mind whirled. Spinning. Calculating. It was the only way. She would never agree to it.

I nudged her mind, still open to me, to the book. To the conclusion that if shows, made, made and unmade, maybe she could… She could remake it again.

She ran for the book. The symbols on the page however were ones only a single being could read. And she was gone.

Feyre's anger surged and she threw the precious book into the caldron. It vanished and did not appear again.

"Well that's one way to try it," I said amusement ever so faint echoed in my voice while my face remained grim. Hard. I knew what to do.

"I don't know what to do," she whispered.

I do.

I studied the runes. Once I committed myself there would be no going back. "Amren said you were the conduit." She only nodded. "So be one again."

"What?"

I looked at her. Couldn't she see? No it would be better if she didn't. "Remade the caldron. Forge it anew."

"With what power?"

I didn't blink as I replied. It was the only way. "My own."

"You're - you're drained, Rhys. So am I. We all are."

Yes but I had enough. It was the only way. "Try. Humor me."

I nudged at her mind ever so slightly again.

"Better than nothing."

No no no. Yes. It was nessecery. She would understand. Have to understand. Have to move on.

"That's the spirit" A burst of dark humor danced in my own eyes as she blew out a breath. Her mental hand stroked my shields but I didn't allow them to lower. No or she would see the truth. No.

Her hand touched mine and I grasped it. My life was now measured in minutes if even that.

Just for the sake of normalcy. For my lovely mate I said, "Remind me never to get on Nesta's bad side."

Shocked pulsed through her then unstanding. It was a form of enduring. Because the alternative to laughter... The devastated face watching us was the alternative. She managed a laugh.

So she was smiling ever so slightly when she laid her hand on the broken shards of the Caldron.

Power surged from within me. Power not from my reserves that had long since been depleted. But from deep within me. My own energy. My own lifeforce. But I kept it flowing out of me. Kept it coming even as my knees threatened to collapse.

My power was hers to use as she willed. And she was not afraid.

She began to speak. The words were unrecogniable. The magic poured from me into her and from her into the Caldron . Light danced across the fissures. Feyre leaned against me as I poured everything into the magic

I could feel it waning but I didn't stop. More more more.

 _I love you_

I whispered the words into her mind. Some of the truest words I have ever spoken.

Power shuddered through me and into her

 _I love you_

The last crack began to heal and my power sputtered but I kept going. Reaching deeper and deeper. I gave every last drop.

 _I love you_

And it was done. And I was gone.

Nevermore

The darkness beyond was different from all the darkness I'd encountered. Yet… It was the same. So much the same. It was empty as it was peaceful and dangerous and restlessness. It was both loud and soft and smooth as water or the finest silk. But I was not alone. Not alone in that velvet darkness.

I was faraway but I was still seeing. Seeing through eyes that were not my own. Eyes attached to a person who screamed and screamed and -

I knew whose eyes I looked through the as my host clutched my true dead body.

Then Mor was there. And Azriel, swaying on his feet, an arm hooked around Cassian- just as bloody and barely standing thanks to the blue webbed Siphon patches all over him. All over them both.

Hands took my corpse from my host's fingers.

Mor said something to my host.

But Thesan shook his head. I had already known but my host- Feyre trembled.

Tarquin was there as was Helion, face white with shock and drained of magic.

"He…" Helion rasped and shook his head eyes closed, "Of course he did." I felt a spark of pride. For my home. For my mate. For the world.

The lips that were not mine parted, moved, "Please."

Tarquin wrapped his hands around Feyre's - my hands. "I'm sorry." Those two words meant everything and nothing _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._

"Bring him back." Blank faces. Viviana wept softly.

"BRING HIM BACK!" My lips screamed. "You did it for me. Now do it for him."

Helion stepped forward carfully as if approaching a wild beast, "You were a human. It's us not the same-"

"I don't care. Do it." Feyres voice was deadly quite and sharp as the sharpest dagger.

Tarquin was the first to move, stepping forward and extended a hand toward my dead body. "For what he gave. Today and many years before." His voice was quite and gentle.

As that seed of light appeared on his palm… Feyre started crying. He tilted his hand and it rolled off onto my bare throat. It flared and vanished at it touched my skin. Then Kallias. Then Thesan. Then Beron. Feyre extended her palm and I found myself hoping beyond hope. She was a High Lady. She was a High Lady. The spark drifted down.

There was only one missing. Tamlin stood before us and studied me then Feyre. Still with tears steaming down her face. For me.

For once I couldn't tell what he was thinking. There was no kindness on his face. No mercy.

"Please."

Tamlin glanced between us again. And again. Studying. Watching. His face did not change.

"Please," A sob escaped my mate. "I will give you anything."

Something shifted in his eyes at that. Maybe he recognized the words as ones he had once spoken to me. Maybe he had said the same words to the king. But still… No kindness. No emotion at all.

Feyre laid her head on my chest. "Anything." She breathed. "Anything."

My heart strained for her and whatever part of my souls still clinging to life - to her - clenched.

Tamlin still stood and looked down on me. On Feyre. The human who had once sacrificed everything to save him. The human who had died for him. And the one who had been his bride. Who had been his lover. The immortal with the human heart. At last those green eyes swam with an emotion. One I could not place. Maybe he couldn't either.

"Be happy Feyre," he said quietly. And dropped that final glimmer of light onto me.

Everything was black, and warm, and thick. Inky but bordered with silver and gold. I was not alone. I reached out my hand... and Amren took it.

Then I was swimming, kicking up for the surface. Life awaited. Up up up. Frantic for air. Then the darkness changed to something like sparkling wine. Easier to swim through. Light.

I breathed in. And stroke my mate's back.

A gift. All of it.


End file.
